Jeff Mitchell: Salinas heaven on Earth for consultants

Thanks to bold and swift action by your Salinas City Council, new jobs will be soon be available that pay real, livable wages!

In fact we should all rejoice that our forward-thinking local governmental stewards have come through with what they're calling the Salinas City Comprehensive Omnibus Consultant Employment Act.

A grand and mighty thing it is, too.

You, too, if you play your cards right, can glom onto the city's treasury and suck down big money!

How can you take advantage of this veritable jobs gold rush?

All you need to do is attend a few meetings, look concerned, have a cool business card and website, offer a few obvious suggestions and write a 25-page report – oh, and set your hourly rate so ridiculously high that your legitimacy simply cannot be questioned.

Oh, a PowerPoint and well-pressed suit are kind of important, too.

And though it's unlikely folks like you or me will ever get one of these power gigs, I think we can all rest a little easier at night knowing that none of our many paid city consultants will have to suffer the shame of driving a 2013 Lexus when they'd feel so much better about themselves in the 2014 model. Poor things.

Of course, in reality, there really is no Salinas City Comprehensive Omnibus Consultant Employment Act. But there might as well be.

I'm telling you, folks, Salinas City Hall is the original House of Cards – remove all the consultants from the mix and watch the walls come tumbling down.

Among my fav consulting shops, no doubt, would have to be John Hartnett and his SVG Partners LLC of San Jose and Development Counsellors International of Denver.

So far, DCI has spearheaded the development of a new business website for the city and a new logo. Those cost nearly $200,000.

But Hartnett is the kind of consultant you just have to admire.

For now, what is nearly a half-million dollars – at $15,000 a month plus retainer – SVG since November of 2011 has done a lot of "feel-good" stuff for Salinas like setting up a kids computer coding club and holding an entrepreneur training class through the Kauffman Foundation.

But landing a big company that might actually hire some of our residents at living wages – really not so much.

Now if it means anything to you, Hartnett and DCI are getting paid mostly out of the $1 million in "corporate shame" money that former Mayor Dennis Donohue squeezed out of Capital One before it abandoned Salinas and about 800 of its workers for the apparently sunnier climes of Sioux Falls, S.D. (yeah, you read that right, South Dakota.)

Unfortunately, City Manager Ray Corpuz Jr. recently revealed during a council meeting that the city was also using a bit of general fund money to pay for this flurry of turbocharged economic development activity (insert drollness here).

In total, it seems that the better part of $800,000 from the Cap One fund has been expended – maybe more – on an economic development plan that has yet to bring a single new company to Salinas or employ – short of small army of consultants that is – a single person.

I'm not sure that's what we'd call a super great ROI – consultant biz lingo for "return on investment."

The unfortunate thing is that the crazy spending of Cap One's "play money" doesn't stop there.

According to both both DCI and Hartnett's consulting new proposals for the 2014-15 fiscal year, copies of which were obtained by The Californian, it looks like more of the same over-promised and under-delivered situation as before.

In exchange for a cool $75,000, DCI promises to set up meetings between city representatives and the "national media" to sell the idea of Salinas to the world.

This marketing company and its partners so far got Salinas mentioned in a couple of high-end business publications and, with partnering firms, came up with a new logo, a new website and a slogan: "Salinas: Rich in Land. Rich in Values." (Almost makes one tear up, doesn't it?)

In its new proposal, DCI promises briefings, a trip to New York, "site selector" newsletters, dinners and luncheons and more exposure to more high profile news organizations. The firm also will set up visits to Salinas by business writers and will make sure the city's business website is always fresh with new copy, among other things.

How this consulting firm actually delivers the story placements that it's promising to the city must be what elfin magic is like. Methinks the process has little to do with real journalism, but I digress.

Now with Hartnett's proposal – dated May 27 – the affable Irishman seeks an additional $180,000 for a 12-month fiscal contract from the city. Now that fee may get chopped to $90,000 for six-month contract, according to a recent PowerPoint slide presentation from city Finance Director Matt Pressey.

And no disrespect to Hartnett, but his proposal is a little like reading a work of fiction – more of the same old mumbo-jumbo.

At the end of the day, the old phrase of "money talks and bull---- walks" is what should be controlling any discussion of Salinas' economic development plans.

What we need to hear from these economic development and marketing gurus is that they've arranged for a real company with real employees to come to the city and work in a real bricks-and-mortar facility. That's what we need.

In Hartnett's case – a man first introduced to the city by Donohue – this situation goes back to the fall of 2011.

So I'm wondering like many of you – what exactly is taking so long?

But maybe in the arcane world of economic development such a turn-around for a place like Salinas will take literally years to happen. Maybe I'm wrong to be so critical of the city's seemingly crazy spending on these consultants.

Then again, maybe I'm not.

So what I will do is this: I will happily buy steak dinners with all the trimmings at Grower's Pub for Hartnett, Corpuz and Mayor Joe Gunter if – and this is a big if – before the end of this new fiscal year (June 30, 2015) this plan yields an actual new enterprise to the city.

Mind you, to get their dinners, these guys must make sure the company locates within Salinas' city limits and that it must employ at least 20 people.

If that happens, gentlemen, chow will be gladly on me and no one will be happier than yours truly than to witness and acknowledge the vanguard of Salinas' economic turn-around in this very space.

In the meantime, let's all take a moment to celebrate our city's impressive Comprehensive Omnibus Consultant Employment Act, shall we?

Important meeting Tuesday

It probably won't set your hair on fire – and feel free to call me old fashioned – but if you have the time to show up to Tuesday's City Council meeting, you should.

The council will be doing two things of importance: 1. Adopting its roughly $90 million 2014-15 fiscal year general fund budget, and, 2. Consider the terms of the sale of the land at One Main Street (yes, that One Main Street, i.e. where the National Steinbeck Center is located).

Now, mind you, the second item will be in closed session and although the city, by law, must "report out" any action it takes, it may not take any formal action on this item and thus not report out anything.

That said, as has been reported in the space recently, Cal State Monterey Bay is most definitely looking to buy the property, buy the building and move a big part of its university operations into the facility – thus saving the financially endangered museum and what's left of Salinas's cultural and literary self-respect in the process.

The council meets at 4 p.m. Tuesday in the City Hall Rotunda, 200 Lincoln Ave. Bring coffee if you know what's good for you.

Tax ballot measure info now online

For those of you wondering, City Council action on the proposed sales tax and utility users tax ballot measures is scheduled for the body's June 24 meeting.

At TheCalifornian.com's urging, the city has posted the language and details around the measures on its website. It's pretty thick stuff, but I urge you to spend some soon going over it. The sales tax measure is a big, big deal and it's passage is critical.

Our thanks go to City Clerk Patty Barajas, Finance Director Matt Pressey and the finance department staff for working to get these documents up online.

Jeff Mitchell covers Salinas Valley politics and government. Under the Dome, a reported opinion column, appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in print and online. Email him at jemitchell@thecalifornian.com. For quick political hits, check out Under the Dome – The Blog, available most every day at: www.theCalifornian.com